


The Name on the Wall

by FrivolousSuits



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Drug Use, Getting Together, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24535225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrivolousSuits/pseuds/FrivolousSuits
Summary: “We should figure out a strategy, for after they disbar us.”“Spousal privilege?”
Relationships: Mike Ross/Harvey Specter, Past Donna Paulsen/Harvey Specter - Relationship, Past Mike Ross/Rachel Zane
Comments: 28
Kudos: 236





	The Name on the Wall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSightlessSniper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSightlessSniper/gifts).



The office is empty. The lights are off. There’s nothing left but the firm’s name, its letters wrought in metal, still gleaming on the wall.

Harvey’s lost track of the way they got here. 

It’s been three years since he followed Mike to Seattle. Three years ago, he learned why Mike had abandoned his new firm’s mission of pro bono work– Forsyth had strong-armed Mike into a contract from hell, he’d lied about his funding and demanded profits pro bono couldn’t possibly deliver. Two years and nine months ago, Harvey had dug up dirt on Forsyth. He nailed Forsyth on a civil violation and blackmailed him into loosening the contract, into giving Mike some semblance of freedom. A month after that, Forsyth had gone to Mike and threatened  _ Harvey,  _ threatened to expose Harvey’s blackmail even if it torpedoed his own career, and Mike had bribed him to save Harvey, but a fourth party had cottoned on to the bribe and held them both at metaphorical gunpoint, and Harvey had forged a couple records to weasel out of it, but Mike tried to take the fall for the forgery and deflect the blame from Harvey, and Harvey might have had to perjure himself a couple dozen times to save Mike–

The lights are off. The lawsuit, the final nail in their firm’s coffin, is due to arrive tomorrow morning.

Their employees have all walked out. Rachel, ever clever, was the first to jump ship, defecting on moral grounds when she learned exactly why Forsyth offered her a management position. It seems Mike never told her that her job offer was just a sweetener, an incentive to bring  _ her husband _ out to Seattle. She protested that she wasn’t Mike’s partner anymore, only a pawn.

“I keep doing this,” Mike murmurs. His voice sounds painfully distant, though perhaps that’s just the chemicals' doing. “I go out there with the best of intentions, and I just break everything I touch.”

Harvey can sense Mike sauntering up behind him. He doesn’t turn around, his own gaze locked on the name on the wall.

When he speaks, his voice cracks low. “You learned from the best.”

_ You’ve lost your way.  _ That was the accusation Mike threw at him back in New York, and it was bitingly true. Seattle’s been a trainwreck but New York was worse, a ruthless, aimless descent into hell. At least in Seattle’s Harvey’s known why he’s committed each of his crimes. He sees the reason behind every line he’s crossed.

“Why are you still here?” Mike asks.

It’s a fair question. Rachel’s gone, the divorce papers came a year ago and no one even pretended surprise. Donna left a few days later. To the office, to Mike, she announced it was a savvy business decision, because Benjamin’s building a proper company this time around and she’ll make more as its COO than this entire  _ firm _ does. 

To Harvey, she’d just laughed through the tears one night, when he announced he’d paid off half of the Washington bar’s ethics committee to protect Mike.

_ I know everything, remember? _

Harvey stares at the wall.

“I’ve been here before,” he says at last. “The night after you got arrested, the lights were off, the firm was deserted. We broke out the pot back then too.”

Mike lets out a sound of disbelief.

“Louis, high, is a thing of beauty,” Harvey adds with a smirk.

“Jesus.”

Harvey steals a glance at Mike. The smoke’s eased some of the lines in his face, shaking free a loose, easy smile Harvey’s missed for a decade.

Mike Ross, happy, is a thing of beauty.

“It’s not exactly the same though,” Harvey reflects. “At least this time you’re here.”

“Why are you still here?” Mike repeats. Harvey should've known he wouldn't forget the question.

Truth is, Harvey’s here because he’s lost his way. Because he’s lost his wife, he’s lost his old firm and his city and he doesn’t care. Even if the words on the wall are a lie, even if he’ll only ever be a pawn in the background of Michael Ross’s grand plans, he can’t care. 

He’s lost without Mike.

“I followed you to goddamn Seattle,” he says aloud.

“So you’re staying because of the sunk-cost fallacy?” Mike snorts. “You don’t want to pull out now and admit your mistakes?”

Harvey scowls, because that’s not what he meant, because his heart might break if Mike walks around thinking that. 

“I’m staying,” he breathes, “because I’d follow you to hell and back.”

The declaration hangs in the air, unacknowledged, and despite the pot Harvey starts to panic. Then he catches sight of Mike’s widened eyes.

Something hangs between them, electric.

Mike’s tongue flicks out to wet his lips. Without looking away, he remarks, “We should figure out a strategy, for after they disbar us.”

“Spousal privilege?”

Harvey doesn’t think through the words until after he’s said them. He quickly dons a silly, entirely unserious smile.

But Mike frowns, the lines etched back into his brow. “No more fraud.”

“Yeah,” Harvey says with a chuckle and cavalier shrug. He forces his eyes away. “It’s my worst idea yet.”

“. . . I don’t know about that."

And Harvey’s focus snaps right back to Mike.

“Why,” he prods warily, “because the whole fake-lawyer sham was even worse?”

“. . . because it could work. Us.” Mike inhales deep before adding, “Married.”

Harvey squints at him, grasping through the smoky fog for words. “Usually people . . . date first.”

“That’s your hang-up?” Mike prods right back. “The fact that we don’t know each other well enough yet?”

That startles a genuine laugh out of Harvey, at the sheer absurdity of the notion.

“If it is,” Mike carries on, voice bubbling with humor, “marry me because I’d like to date you.”

Harvey can’t breathe. He reels from the image conjured up, a future as Mike’s partner in business and in life, all the lies between them at last stripped away. But that’s a movie quote Mike just recited, from a film about legally-motivated marriages of convenience, and this all might still be one giant sham . . .

“Harvey?”

He must look wrecked, the way Mike’s eyes widen in concern.

“I’ll follow you,” Harvey says, and he  _ sounds _ wrecked. “Whatever you want, but you have to tell me if this is all just another joke–”

Mike kisses him, mid-sentence, and Harvey is found. They pull away for air an eternity later, foreheads still resting together.

“No more fraud. Not between us, at least . . .”

“The rest of the world had better watch out,” Harvey finishes with a chuckle.

The name on the wall’s all they have left, a glimmering thing of beauty. Perhaps it’s all they need.

“Ross-Specter.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for thesightlesssniper, who asked for some "sweet, sweet Marvey." For more info, here's my [tumblr](https://frivoloussuits.tumblr.com/).
> 
> This is not how spousal privilege works in real life, but in the Suitsverse spousal privilege does seem to cover more sins.


End file.
